Iran executed a young woman at dawn on Saturday who said she had acted in self-defence against a sexual assault, as authorities simultaneously handed a second woman ten death sentences in a separate case involving the killing of elderly men she had married.
Marzieh Nieri, 23, was executed at Qazvin Central Prison. Iran Human Rights said she had been forced into marriage at 17 under family pressure.
The incident that led to her execution occurred in October 2021, when she was 18.
At her trial, Nieri said one of her husband’s business partners had attempted to assault her after becoming inebriated and that she wounded him with a kitchen knife in self-defence. Her husband was also killed during the confrontation.
Nieri turned herself in to the police four days after the incident, after going to her brother’s home.
The court rejected her self-defence claim and, following a request from the victims’ families for qisas — retribution in kind under the Islamic Republic’s law — sentenced her to death.
Iran Human Rights said her execution brought the number of women executed in Iran since the start of 2026 to at least 14.
The executions come against a backdrop of sharply rising execution rates for women in Iran. The US State Department said at least 61 women were executed in Iran in 2025 — the highest figure in 25 years and roughly 70% more than the previous year. It described Iran as far ahead of any other country in the number of death sentences carried out against women.
Killing a husband or partner is one of the most common charges in cases involving women on death row in Iran. Iran Human Rights said at least 21 of the women executed in 2025 had been sentenced to qisas for killing their husbands or fiancés.
Women’s rights organisations say many of those women had a history of domestic violence before the killing, and that forced marriage at a young age, economic dependence, restricted access to divorce and limited legal protection leave many women with few options for escaping abusive relationships.
Qisas is a principle in Iranian law derived from Islamic jurisprudence under which the family of a murder victim has the right to demand execution of the convicted killer, or to accept financial compensation — known as diyya, or “blood money” — in lieu of the death penalty.
Iranian courts can only carry out a death sentence in such cases with the explicit consent of the victim’s next of kin.
Serial killer handed 10 death sentences
On the same day, the Mazandaran judiciary announced that Kolthoum Akbari had received 10 qisas death sentences for 10 killings.
The case against her opened in September 2023 after the suspicious death of an 82-year-old man in Mahmoudabad, who had died months after entering into a temporary marriage with Akbari.
His family’s report to police led to an investigation that uncovered several other cases. Akbari confessed after her arrest to killing multiple elderly men, most of whom she had also married on a temporary basis. Her movable and immovable property was also confiscated.
The family of the 11th victim that Akbari was found guilty of murdering did not demand a death sentence in lieu of financial compensation. The authorities believe the total number of Akbari’s victims is likely more than 11.
Iran is one of the few countries in the world that still applies the death penalty at scale. Human rights organisations recorded at least 1,639 executions in Iran in 2025 — the highest annual figure since 1989 and equivalent to more than four executions a day.
Amnesty International said only 17 countries carried out executions that year, with Iran second only to China.
Rights groups warn that executions have continued to rise in 2026, with the nationwide protests of December 2025 and the war with the US and Israel cited as factors increasing the risk of the death penalty being applied more broadly.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases regardless of the crime or circumstances, describing it as a violation of the right to life.
